Police say that amongst the possessions of Gavin's stalker, Han Sup Shin's they found these song lyrics, scribbled down on a cocktail napkin.

I never meant 2 cause u any problems
I never meant 2 cause u any scare
I only wanted 2 one time see u laughing
I only wanted 2 see u laughing at my purple gloves

Purple gloves Purple gloves
Purple gloves Purple gloves
Purple gloves Purple gloves

I only wanted 2 bath u in my purple gloves

I never wanted 2 be your pretend lover
I only wanted 2 be more than Jen
Baby I could never steal u from another
It's such a shame the police made it end

Purple gloves Purple gloves
Purple gloves Purple gloves
Purple gloves Purple gloves

I only wanted 2 see u in my purple gloves

Gavin I know, I know, I know times are changing
You know you want to try something new
That means me 2
U say u are a leader
But u can't seem 2 make up your mind
About so many things
So let me guide u with my purple gloves

Purple gloves Purple gloves
Purple gloves Purple gloves

If you know what I'm singing about up here
C'mon raise your hand

Purple gloves Purple gloves

I only want 2 see u, only want 2 see u
In some purple gloves

From yesterday's Chronicle article about Newsom stalker Han Shin:

Inside [Shin's car], police found a map of San Francisco with the location of the mayor's building highlighted and a line following streets from the building to the Bay Bridge. Also found were a cutout composite photograph of the mayor, Shin and Shin's father, magazines with articles about Newsom, a laminated photograph of Newsom, three purple latex gloves and a cassette tape titled "President Newsom."

Now, we don't have laminated pictures of Gavin Newsom .... yet..... but aw, come on! There is nothing wrong with making composite pictures of yourself with Gavin Newsom. Why, check out our composite picture with Gavin Newsom, Han Shin, Peter Ragone, Hillary Clinton, bald Britney Spears, and a Fake Question Time chicken!

Original picture by Greg Dewar, before we tampered with it. Sorry, Greg! Picture of Newsom and Shin by Pia Torelli for the Chron, picture of Peter Ragone by SFist Jackson, picture of Hillary by the AP, picture of Britney not credited.

Special single-issue Blotter! And please note: other SFist writers may very well take a crack at this same topic.

Looking for news on Gavin's stalker? We've now rearranged this morning's blotter into our usual Breaking News format, latest updates on top. Read our original post after the jump too, we're quite proud of all the links we put in!

Latest: Guess who else Han Shin was obsessed with? District 4 Supervisor Ed Jew! He's gotten 20 emails from Shin, but says he's not too worried about it.

Previously.....:

YAY!!! The Chron's put back up the Sentinel picture of Shin and Newsom wearing their respective trademark colors!!!!!!

Afternoon p.m. update: The Chron posts an afternoon update on stalker Han Shin, noting that he's quite seriously mentally ill, and his elderly parents have had to get restraining orders against him, once when he threatened them with a hoe.

However, we're frustrated! The Chron originally had up an awesome Sentinel picture of Shin with Newsom from the 3rd anniversary of gay marriage event from two weeks ago where Shin had on his trademark purple tie and latex glove, and Gavin had on..... oh, you guess, we won't spoil it for you!!! But they took it down. Frustrating! We'll keep an eye out and update this with a link if it ever comes back.

Morning Update: Pat Murphy at the Sentinel has found a picture of Shin at Second Fake Question Time, with purple glove and tie on.

Original story after the jump!

Picture of Gavin Newsom in yesterday's rain storms from CBS 5's coverage (article and video). Note: it looks like a black tie to us.

Here's our Caption Action entry for the picture above!

Oscar winner Al Gore, Oscar-less Leonardo diCaprio, and our pick in the pool for Best Supporting Actor (in the role of John Nelson), Peter Ragone.

And yes, you heard it correctly from commenter Ragone Has Resigned -- former mayoral press secretary Peter Ragone is leaving his recently retitled job as Director of Communications in City Hall to move up the street to work out of the Newsom reelection campaign office at Van Ness and Sutter. Ragone will be replaced at City Hall by Nathan Ballard, the former press secretary for the Northern California John Kerry campaign.

So what's this all mean? Well, we've got a difference of opinion at RagoneWatch headquarters. SFist Jon thinks it's just a routine job reassignment and that Ragone will continue to be a force on the reelection side. We're wondering, though, in light of the commentary on the SFWall, whether this is actually some kind of Office Space-like situation, where first they change Ragone's title, then they move him to an office further away from the Big Guy, and he ends up in a janitorial closet, clutching his red Swingline stapler and muttering, "I could set the building on fire."

Picture by SFist Jackson from the 2005 Current TV launch. And sorry for the delay in posting this -- we had a comical mixup where we thought SFist Jon was on it, and SFist Jon thought we were. We need a Director of Communications around here!

Our favorite Fox News anchor, Kimberly Guilfoyle, worked the runway for the Heart Truth Red Dress Collection, at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. The fashion show raised awareness for heart disease in women, which Kim says took the lives of both of her grandmothers.

So why didn't we know about this? The fashion show happened on February 2, so we were probably too busy with SFistGate and TourkGate to notice. Good to see Kim didn't let Gavin's sex scandal get in the way of a good photo op.

Mrs. Villency strutted alongside the likes of Kelly Ripa, Katharine McPhee, and Rachael Ray, to an audience that included First Lady Laura Bush. Kim looks hot in this red dress, even after having a baby.

You can watch footage from the runway show on "The Lineup" website.

We hope Jennifer Siebel's taking notes. We'd like to see Kim and Jen do a walk-off!

Photo from About.com

Image replaced to avoid hotlinking. Photo of Tina Turner's cat courtesy of the Institute for Private Dancing Studies.

As reported, Jennifer Siebel sported a weird houndstooth coat at the Second Fake Question Time. At first glance, we figured that maybe the coat wasn't so bad. We love us some houndstooth. However, closer examination confirmed that, yes, Ms. Siebel made a fashion misstep. But who hasn't, right?

We decided to investigate the past sartorial choices of Gavin's sober, er, better half. (And, if the gossips are right, the future First Lady of SF!)

Here's vintage Jen at the Something's Gotta Give premiere in the first photo, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind premiere:

(Photos from MSN movies, Yahoo movies)

The black coat looks a tad matronly on Jen. And we know she's not wearing an actual coat in the other photo, but we're guessing it's some sort of wrap/blanket/shawl to keep her warm in Hollywood's frozen tundra. The clashing patterns and colors leave homegirl lookin' a hot mess, which is unfortunate because J.Sieb has the potential to be fierce.

Some SFist style suggestions after the jump!

Image replaced to avoid hotlinking. Photo of Tina Turner's cat courtesy of the Institute for Private Dancing Studies.

Greetings from the great beyond! We've just died and gone to blog heaven after this explosion of every single thing we're obsessed with over on the Chronicle's Culture Blog. RIP, us!

Okay, so let's see, what do we have here... a 1) Catherine Bigelow-penned blog entry featuring 2) Britney Spears's bald head grafted onto the bodies of 3) local politicians and 4) Pac Heights celebutantes!! Over on our beloved former co-editor's new online adventure, with the pictures done by our very favorite co-editor's spouse! AAAAAAH!!!! We just died again from the excitement!!!

Check out Britney Mirkarimi up on your left, and Britney Bronstein on your right -- we'll let you discover Britney Newsom (not to be confused with Brittan-ie Newsom), Britney Gonzalez, Britney Getty, and Britneys Tourk and Ragone on your own (along with others which we won't even spoil for you). Meanwhile, we're going to get fitted for our angel halo and wings up here in blogger heaven -- watch us rock out Joanna Newsom-style on the Movable Type harp!

The Gavin Newsom Mea Culpa tour continues on as he put on his hair shirt on (with matching blue tie) and sat down with CBS 5's Hank Plante to talk about his rather crappy past couple of weeks.

The big money quote? Gavin channeling Popeye to say "I am who I am, imperfect and a work in progress." He also denied cocaine use, said he was going to Delancey Street almost every night, and wasn't sure if he was an alcoholic. In fact, he admitted that his work with Delancey Street was more to help him figure out why he was drinking as much as he was and not so much the 12 Step Program. Asked about his problems, Gavin admitted that his personal life had gotten in the way of his doing his job as Mayor and that he finds being Mayor these days as "therapeutic." He then went on to say, in the unedited interview, how much better he's feeling these days and then went on to talk about having nothing left to lose and all that and we could almost hear the inspirational power-ballad in the background.

Eh, sorry. Was that too snarky? He actually comes off as pretty honest in the interview and does take complete and full responsibility in what he did. He even mentioned that the whole rehab thing is a bit of a cliche and that he doesn't want to make it come off like he's blaming the booze. And hell, considering the recent doings of Ms. Spears, what Gavin did is kind of boring-- a whole new standard in public meltdowns has been set.

Gavin got a little help from Ms Pelosi as she was in town to talk about Global Warming. Apparently, she spent the first few minutes praising the Mayor's leadership skills, but as Fog City Journal notes, they never hugged or did anything that could get turned into a negative ad, you know, showing off all those San Francisco Values and all that. Not that Rudy Guilliani is considered a front runner for the nomination and all that. Eh, who knows.

Picture of Gavin and Nancy by SFist Jim

ABC 7 is the latest people to do a survey on Gavin and all the recent Gavin news and found out that the dude is still pretty popular in town, all to the tune of 75% approval ratings. That's five percent higher than the poll Matier & Ross wrote about last weekend.

Other numbers in the poll--
-90% say he shouldn't resign
-79% say he should run for re-election
-85% say that none of this has changed their opinion of him
-Over 75% say they either care only a "little" about this or "not at all"
-60% say they'll vote for him again with 27% saying it'll all be up to who runs against him
-85% hate Britney's new bald look

You can read all the poll results here.

There's also some pretty fun comments posted made up of people who answered the poll questions. We particularly like this one:

At least Gavin Newsom slept with woman- unlike most other perverts that run this city. We all know he is an extremely good looking man and most guys envy him for that but they will give anything to be in his shoes!

Actually, we can summarize most of the comments thusly: "he's doing a good job and who cares?"

Of course, this hasn't gone without some negative spin. Tony Hall looked at those numbers and told ABC 7 that the numbers should be higher and that it shows that Gavin's not that popular. This makes us wonder just what sort of approval ratings Hall thinks Gavin should have. Hell, getting 75% of San Franciscans to agree on anything is almost impossible. We think even if you polled people on "Does LA suck" or "Are cute puppies the best thing ever" you still couldn’t get those numbers. Fog City Journal is still saying that Gavin is vulnerable this year , especially in fund-raising and Stephen T. Jones over at the Bay Guardian agrees.

We guess we shall see.

Lest we forget, the Gavster is also up for re-election this year and there's a few stories taking the temperature of his campaign, not least of which is Matier & Ross' story that Gavin still has 70% approval ratings, even after l'affiare du Tourk.

The Examiner has a story this morning saying Gavin's re-election campaign is up and running and has already raised a million dollars. The fund raising was suspended for a few weeks after the soap opera began but has now started up again in earnest. The story also has a bunch of quotes from Gavin's people about how they're having no problems raising bucks and that only a few possible contributors have shied away from giving money.

But wait just a gosh-darn minute, says Fog City Journal. According to the first two stories in a five part series, Gavin's fund raising is actually behind where it was when he first ran for Mayor and isn't all that great this year. Now, some of the story is just speculation, guesses that a lot of donors, especially those outside SF, won't be so eager to hop into the fray this time around. Among reasons given is the bad press he's getting outside of the city and his perceived status as probably DOA on any chances of higher office.

But of interest is all the effect the new campaign laws will have on Gavin's campaign, mainly that he won't be able to throw as much money into the campaign as he did when he ran the first time. Among rules his campaign has to deal with is caps on contributions, no donations from corporations, and less time to raise money. According to the story, Gavin will only raise somewhere around $4 million this go-around, about two million less than he raised in 2003.

Still, $4 million is nothing to sneeze at.

Way back when, in days of yore, Alex Tourk and Gavin Newsom were friends and worked on projects together, like San Francisco Connect. And so they decided to that in order to get people to join in and volunteer, they needed to come up with an advertising campaign. Which they did. And guess what tag line they came up with for Project Connect? "Volunteering is Sexy."

Guess what new advertising campaign is going live this week?

Yep, you guessed it.

So many punch lines, so little time. So how's this: "It's so sexy you'll forget your boss is having sex with your wife, while you help homeless people set up voicemail."

With help from SFist Elaine

We've learned so much about mayoral communications director Peter Ragone from this article in the Sunday Chron! Since it's a Sunday (and there's no Swells today), we're naturally giving it the SFist By The Numbers treatment.

Peter Ragone's generational suffix: III. Other Peter the Thirds we found in history include: a remarkably unpopular Russian tsar and a king of Portugal who married his own niece.

Ragone's salary: $118,468. The article didn't say how much sick leave he's entitled to.

Number of unsuccessful political candidates for whom Ragone has worked: 3 -- Andrew Cuomo's failed run for New York governor, Gore's ill-fated 2000 run, and Gray Davis's failed run against the recall.

Number of posts Ragone made on SFist from his confirmed IP address: 15: 7 under the name "Peter," 7 under the name "John Nelson," and 1 under the name "Jonell."

Number of confirmed fake posts on ABC 7's blog: 2.

Number of people Ragone's implicated as lying: 2 -- himself and Gavin Newsom. Aaron Peskin says, "It is astounding to me that this mayor would allow this gentleman to continue to serve in the position of press secretary now that Ragone, on the one hand, has said he is a liar and, on the other hand, has admitted the mayor is a liar."

Picture of Ragone and Newsom by SFist Jackson. More numbers after the jump!

You think Gavin Newsom'll shave off all his hair next, just like rehabbing Britney Spears?

Okay, so where were we the last time we checked in with the Ruby Rippey-Tourk sick leave investigations? So the mayor's office and the Tourk family spokesman were taking the position that Rippey-Tourk got the city to cover her salary as paid sick leave during the time she was in rehab through the city's catastrophic-leave program, where people can donate sick leave to co-workers who need to take time off to take care of themselves or their families.

Well, today, Supervisor Tom Ammiano told the Chron that while he doesn't mean to trivialize the impact of alcohol abuse, the catastrophic leave program in question (which he helped create) is only meant to cover people who are dealing with "a life-threatening illness or injury" as determined by the city's public health officials, and not for a rehab program. Uh oh.

Explanations, Dan Noyes, and a possible Board of Supes hearing on the issue after the jump. And also, check out the street art we saw in the window of the Balazo art gallery right by Weird Fish on 18th and Mission this morning!

Well, whaddya know -- sorry for misrepresenting the accuracy of the SFWall gossip: Gavin Newsom is in fact going to Japan! According to press secretary Peter Ragone (so take it with a grain of salt), Newsom is leaving tomorrow and coming back on Tuesday -- hope he'll have a chance to catch cousin Joanna Newsom's Saturday Osaka show while he's there.

Gavin's trip is occasioned by the 50th anniversary of San Francisco's sister city relationship with Osaka, and he's going with a delegation of 45 people, including Jeff Adachi and Ross Mirkarimi (we know, we know, with a name like Mirkarimi, we thought he was Japanese too -- but he's Iranian/Russian. He's going because Japantown is in District 5.)

This is Newsom's second international trip in a month (he went to Davos three weeks ago), and his fourth sister-city trip since 2004 (he went to Manila in November, Shanghai and Cork, Ireland in 2005). We look forward to Gavin's trip to one of our other sister cities, Abidjan, in the war-torn Cote d'Ivoire!

Man, we thought we'd be able to get through a week without any sort of Gavin bombshell, but we were wrong. As the saying goes, everytime we think we're out, he pulls us back in.

So today there's a big story about Ruby Rippey-Tourk taking a paid ten-week leave of absence maybe illegally, maybe not. Basically, the time off given to her was not commensurate with the amount of time she worked. Now, employees down in city hall are allowed to give their sick time to somebody if they really, really need it and supposedly, Ruby's fellow coworkers donated their time to her. The question, of course, is whether or not they did it out of the kindness of their own hearts or whether Gavin asked them to while making all sorts of hints about how they should really, really donate their time. The Bay Guardian is reporting that the time off was requested by her husband, Alex and that her coworkers wanted to help out. Fog City, however, says that her coworkers weren't very down with it all. The other thing is that the money she was given was much more than normally allowed.

Now the controversy is over it was favoritism or hush money or something like that, all this on the taxpayers dime. Dennis Herrera, the city attorney, is looking into it and Gavin's people are looking into it. Gavin himself actually braved an interview with Dan Noyes and said all of this was done on the up and up. So all of this could be something or it could be nothing.

Dan Noyes has some more juicy tidbits too. One of them being that Alex, Ruby, and Gavin all took sexual harassment classes together. Talk about tension city. After taking the class, Gavin signed a certificate saying he won't do any harrasin'. You can read the certificate here.

Finally, in a speech to the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association at City Hall called "The Newsom Administration Year 3: A Public Policy Report" Gavin said that he can't really give himself good marks in several items, from crime to clean streets. He told them that he made 369 pledges and only came through on about 71% of them which, according to our calculator, comes out to about 262 of them. As we all know, 71% is a C- unless you're grading on a curve or maybe adding points for effort or giving extra credit for staying and cleaning the erasers. Gavin did say he's done a good job on the economy and helping business but then said he's done badly on a bunch of things and that he'll do better. Hey, maybe that could be his relection slogan: "Trying to Be Above Average."

Not only a blue tie alert, but it sounds like maybe the SFWall got Gavin and Joanna Newsom mixed up in their reports earlier this week that our mayor was in Japan -- SFist Jim confirms a sighting of Gavin Newsom in San Francisco today at a swearing-in ceremony. FYI: Joanna Newsom arrives in Nagoya, Japan today (it says Friday the 16th, but they have the international date line in their favor).

And hey, congratulations to our friend and newest civil service commissioner Yu-Yee Wu, over there on the far left of the picture! We don't know any of the other people in the picture, but if they're also being sworn in, congratulations to them as well.

Update, 2/16: No, we're wrong -- Gavin Newsom is in fact going to Japan (leaving Friday, getting back Tuesday).

Picture by rock star SFist Jim!

...But we couldn't resist posting this excellent YouTube of Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around (Comes Around)" set to the movie "Closer." When TourkGate 2007 broke out, we were at home listening to our Justin Timberlake CD. We waited with bated breath until the video co-starring Scarlett Johansson premiered, but we were underwhelmed with the result - too much talking, we didn't get the whole concept with the dancers, and JT's acting kind of sucks. (Plus, we like Natalie Portman in this movie because she totally stole our old haircut.)

We also couldn't help but make the obvious Gavin parallel with the rumored subject of this song, Britney Spears. During SFist's radio appearance with Irene McGee, Irene said "Gavin Newsom is like the Britney Spears of San Francisco" and we couldn't agree more. As with Brit Brit, we wake up every morning wondering what Gavin screwed up today, how his people will spin it in the press, and what impact it will have on his comeback to the good Catholic boy we fell in love with on that wonderful day back in 2003. We don't know if that comeback is possible, but there are lots of important people who've invested in Gavin's re-election campaign and he can't back out now.

By SFist Elaine

Okay, this has been killing us all afternoon. So we were checking out the pictures from Gavin Newsom's reelection campaign kickoff rally from Sunday on his campaign website's "Brian Blogs," and it looks like they decorated the office with lots and lots of signs featuring the names of different SF neighborhoods. Sure, cool, no prob.

But.... what's the neighborhood in the sign at the very right of that picture? The Om---? What SF neighborhood starts with the name "The Om--"? The Omni? The Ombudsman? The Om Malik? We're totally stumped. Can someone please help us out here?

Picture from Brian's Blog, from ActLocallySF.org.

Hey, does anyone know what the mayor of San Francisco's up to?

--M&R report that Gavin has been attending rehab sessions every day this last week -- some as individual sessions with the head of Delancey Street, and some as group sessions, and his community service will take the form of activities he was already doing as mayor. He's dealing with "interpersonal issues, friendship issues, and issues that have been locked up for some time and have had him sabotaging himself." However, political science experts think the whole apology-rehab thing is a bad move: "It's a joke."

--Meanwhile, Gavin opened his reelection campaign office today, to a packed house and upbeat mood. No replacement for Alex Tourk has been named, and Newsom's father said that Gavin's sister has been trying to talk to him about his drinking for some time.

--As requested, here's the clip of Stephen Colbert mocking Gavin Newsom for destroying straight marriages from last Wednesday. You have to watch the ad first, though, sorry.

--While the South Bay donors are by and large okay with Gavin, one VC who knows Alex Tourk has issued a statement that he will not be donating any more money to the Newsom campaign.

--Rumor has it that the Tourks are moving out of the Bay Area.

--There's a webpage just of jokes that Jay Leno's made about Gavin Newsom.

--And William Safire's On Language column today is called "Culpa for Mayor," but it's just about grammatical errors he's made involving the subjunctive tense, and not about mayors taking responsibility for things. Would that it ....were!

As you can see, the pouring rain was wreaking havoc on Gavin Newsom's carefully-styled coif this morning at the Second Fake Question Time townhall meeting in District 10's Bayview district.

We arrived at the Whitney Young Child Development Center at the tail end of an angry pre-game protest about how the mayor's office has neglected the Bayview, and we were also too late to get any of the complimentary lanyards that the MUNI information desk was handing out. Curse you, Greg Dewar, for beating us to the punch!

Today's event, while chicken-free, was certainly less scripted than the first Fake QT, with Gavin's introductory remarks interrupted by housing advocates shouting, "We will not be moved!" who then walked out of the room (wait, we thought they couldn't be moved!). Gavin tried to wrest control of the meeting back, but then was faced with an angry group of activists from ACORN, protesting his surprise plan to demolish the Alice Griffith housing project for the Niners.

Gavin then made his fatal error -- instead of sticking with the prescreened question cards, he relinquished the microphone to the community activists instead. Now we're talking! In short order, Gavin got chastised for (in no particular order): 1) holding the meeting in a place difficult for community members to get to, 2) referring to the meeting place as the Whitney Young Child Care center when it's a community center, 3) making it difficult to turn left off Third Street, 4) not caring about fathers, 5) having his staff take up all the seats while children and the elderly were forced to stand in the back, 6) being a slumlord, 7) not having translators and sign language interpreters present and 8) not ever coming out to the Bayview except once right at the beginning of his mayoral term. You could totally see Gavin thinking, You know, maybe I should have just done Question Time instead.

Jennifer Siebel in a weird houndstooth coat, meet the new Appointments Secretary, "Come on, YOU'RE the mayor!!!", and our unintentionally-hilarious picture of Gavin Newsom with red-eye -- after the jump.

In another embarrassing story involving the SFPD, the SFPD decided not to discipline any officers who made a gay man that urinated against a wall mop it up with his hair and his shirt. The reason is that mainly the correct paperwork wasn't filed in enough time and it's past the point anyone could be disciplined. Lovely.

The police did approve a payout of $83,000 to the man, Andrew Marconi, and commissioners expressed frustration with the amount of bureaucratic snares that delayed any sort of discipline to take place. The main problem was that Marconi failed to issue a complaint with the Office of Citizen Complaints. Because he never did, the whole issue didn't go to the proper channels and so nothing was done.

What happened was that on March 7, 2004, Macroni and some friends were visiting from Sacramento and stepped outside the Endup to take a piss. A couple of cops saw this and, according to the lawsuit, said, and we quote: "you peeing on my streets? Do you think we want your AIDS-infected pee on our streets?" They then made Marconi kneel on the ground to examine his piss and then one of the officers slammed his head against the wall and used his hair to mop it up. They then took off Marconi's shirt and used that to clean up the remaining piss. The police only stopped when one of Marconi's friends, a Stockton police officer, came to his rescue. This, again, all according to the lawsuit.

Now, of course, you can pretty much guess that the cops in question deny this whole thing and say Marconi was too drunk to really be reliable. Marconi admits he was a wee bit drunk but there is a witness who can testify that he overheard the cops make their dumb-ass statements.

Marconi sued the SFPD for battery, assault, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional pain.

Here's the good news: there really isn't any news. Then again, who would know in the midst of the wall-to-wall Anna Nicole coverage? Oh, there was a staff shakeup and Gavin made a joke, but there really is nothing out there. No earth-shaking revelation, no new story of Gavin's lonely life living a Frank Sinatra tune, no clash with reporters. We guess that'll happen tomorrow for Fake Question Time II. That should be fun.

Anyways, onto what little news we have. At a luncheon on Treasure Island for the Fox Sports Net Bay Area, the very same one Bud Selig squirmed at, Gavin told the audience "who would have imagined six weeks ago that someone would take Barry Bonds off the front page of a Bay Area paper?" Well, we didn't say it was a funny joke. He also said that he'd trade his 49ers tickets for tickets to the All-Star game and then quickly said "that's not a shot at the 49ers" when he realized that John York would probably not find that joke funny. Obviously, though, the Gav is still in a bit of turmoil these days as we noticed he switched up from his trademark blue ties to a grey one. Probably to match his mood, we're guessing.

There's also a bit of news in his staff which isn't particularly exciting, other than news that Peter "Byorn" Ragone got an actual promotion and is now "Director of Communications and Planning. We hope that job will still leave him time to troll SFist.

And last night, Gavin attended a little Silicon Valley shindig which just also happened to double as a fund-raiser. Apparently, he's still well liked in the Peninsula. At the party, he told the audience "it has been a lousy week for me" and we think that doesn't even describe it.

Finally, the Chron has an opinion column sort of criticizing the whole rehab craze that's sweeping the nation. Man, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, and Mark Foley really ruined going to rehab for everyone.

There's not much going on in the Gavin front today, for which we praise the heavens for. Yes, we're as tired of this as you are, and, actually, that's got to be considered good for the Gavster as the more bored we are by it, the less we'll care about it. So today, we have Gavin paying Alex Tourk, the latest on Gavin's re-election chances, and Ken Garcia putting Gavin on the couch.

As SFist Rita mentioned, Gavin has figured out that the best way to not have there being any sort of impropriety regarding Alex Tourk's severance using city coffers is by agreeing to pay Alex out of his own wallet. For those who are curious what the going rate of a cuckolded campaign worker is, it's about $15,000 a month. And yeah, we wish we had enough money to pay somebody that much money per month.

Next up, the re-election bid. The Chron checked in with Gavin's big supporters in the business lobby and the society set and found that they're still bullish on Gavin. Throw in a pretty big war chest and still no credible opponent, he's still considered the favorite to win. Well, there is one hold out, that being Wade Randlett and SFSOS who jumped ship, mainly because of quality of life issues. The Chron also notes that usually, the second term for politicians kind of sucks and it sucks even more when you're tarred by scandal. Says Gary South, an advisor to Gray Davis (good job there too, bud) says: "as we found out, sometimes the highlight of your second term is your re-election victory party.''

Now onto Ken Garcia who appears to have taken his meds today and did the columnist equivalent of putting and arm on Gavin's shoulder and told him to buck up, little camper. Garcia writes that Gavin was crippled with self-doubt, even when he was up, and thinks that might have sowed the seeds of Gavin's self-destruction. And at the core of his self-date was that he was unhappy and not quite into all the confines and constraints of being Mayor.

One last little thing, on everyone's favorite other scandal, SFist Gate. Beyond Chron today called on Gavin to firere Peter Ragone because his recent actions has made it such nobody believes what he says. You know, we never quite understood all the hullabaloo about Byorn's lying about SFist Gate-- he's the Press Secretary to a politician, he's supposed to lie. It's in the job Press Secretary Rule Book.

We've got it just as bad as you! Nevertheless, here's the three items we found in our listless online trolling today that still managed to catch our eye.

--GavinWatch tries to shake off its unexpected pity for Gavin Newsom's personal plight with a little tribute to everyone's favorite press secretary -- wearing everyone's favorite color tie! Yay!! Rock it, Byorn!

--The SFJunto chatboard is starting a (non-ironic) Gavin Newsom support group, where you pledge to stay sober as long as Gavin does.

--and finally, in a moment of Beltway blogger hilarity, Wonkette was forced to use the html "strike" function when they accidentally reported that our Gavin had flown out to the nation's capitol for the opportunity to canoodle with the new Miss America. Turns out it was a DC journalist named Patrick Gavin who was seen with Miss America for dinner and then brunch the next day. Somewhere, Peter Ragone is breathing a sigh of relief.

As we go almost a week into As the Gav Turns, a few more stories are leaking out about what's been going on with the Mayor lately. But first, some news, mainly that he is most definitely not going to resign. In fact, he and Jake McG, who earlier called on Gavin to resign, had a meeting yesterday about that very subject that didn't go very well. Gavin played the "why is everybody always picking on me" card to which Jake responded, "bitch, please." Earlier, Jake had called on Gavin to resign, saying that Gavin did not have the "moral fiber" to be Mayor and we seem to recall that not being on the city charter. And if Gavin doesn't have moral turpitude than what could one say about Willie? The other news is that there's been issues as to who exactly is paying Alex Tourk's compensation and Gavin's people are trying to figure out a legal way around paying Alex Tourk as people have brought up the legal issues with how it was initially set up.

Now, onto the juicy stuff…

Apparently, a bunch of people have been telling Gavin to lay off the booze for awhile but Gavin wouldn't hear of it. Then, sometime after his fun little press conference, Gavin started to think "hey, maybe I do have a problem" and reached out to John Burton. Burton had some problems himself back in the day and went through counseling and so Burton met up with Gavin at Delancey Street and told him to get some help. After wards, Gavin called Mimi Silbert, director of Delancey Street to get the ball rolling. That night, Gavin spilled the beans to his family what he was up to and told his staff on Monday.

Okay, to start things off, that's a YouTube clip of Daniel Powter's Had A Bad Day. Play it as you read this post!

Gavin Newsom started off the first day of the rest of his life with a press conference at the Academy of Art College about PG&E's "Energy Watch" program. Since it was the first press conference he's done since announcing his plan to seek treatment for alcohol abuse, it was, predictably, mobbed with media. (N.B.: silver-gray tie.)

When he saw the scene, Gavin noted sardonically, "I never knew they were so interested in this issue!" Hey, that's not very nice to the Bay Guardian reporter present, who's been doggedly covering the corporatization of the city's environmental policy for months, if not years.

The meeting went downhill from there, with Gavin receiving no applause when he was introduced, and a tense reception for his speech about power-saving light bulbs. After the speech, he refused to take any questions not about energy, and when the Bay Guardian reporter asked if he ever would, Gavin said, "You've taken liberty with the question." Gavin then tersely asked another reporter to get out of the way of his door as he got into his town car and sped off. In revenge, the Chronicle described him as "testy" in their breaking news report this afternoon.

Yesterday at a public meeting, Gavin snapped at a photographer and Chron reporter as well, interrupting the meeting to say angrily, "Should I just pose for you so you can get your shot? What do you want? What's the headline in tomorrow's paper?" (For the record, it was "Newsom to Seek Help for Alcohol Abuse.")

Testy indeed! Man, if he's still that upset this Saturday, the second Fake Question Time is going to be off the hook.

And extra bonus after the jump: your late-afternoon links.

Video still from today's press conference from ABC 7.

We really dread to be doing this, again, but here it is, your recap of the reaction to Gavin's admission that he's seeking counseling for booze. Or, as the NY Post puts it, "S.F. Sex Mayor In Booze RX." You know, we used to joke with our fellow -ists about how exciting our Mayor is compared to their boring, dreary Mayors (Gothamist's biggest scandal concerning Bloomberg was that he has bad fashion sense) but we're kind of over it.

ANYWAYS, let's take a look at all the big picture stuff out there, starting with the rumor that DiFi wanted Gavin to resign. This morning, the rumor was completly denied by DiFi's people. As to Gavin's political future, it appears other potential gubernatorial 2010 candidates are singing "oh, happy day" now that Newsom is busy self-destructing all over the place. Then there's the Republicans trying to add gas to the flames and blaming it all on Nancy Pelosi (see what happens when you elect Democrats into power-- straight people get caught having sex with people of the opposite sex as opposed to people having sex with pages). The fact that the Chron is even reporting that info is driving SFist Cedric out of his kitchen to rant about it.

As for the reaction, my, aren't we all a cynical bunch? Everybody seems to be thinking this whole thing is more PR than anything else. Maybe it's because, as a commenter said, rehab is the new black. Articles however from PR experts saying that it's the right PR move probably doesn't help nor does Ted Haggard suddenly coming out of rehab to announce he is straight again help (you can make your own jokes in the comment section below-- we're going to stay out of it). We would like to repeat the fact that Gavin's drinking has been a pretty open secret these past couple of years so maybe, just maybe, he really does need help.

Let's see, what else is there? Oh, all this is making Ken Garcia cranky again but he's always cranky. The Chron has the typical Man on the Street interviews but we've heard from good sources that most of those are written in a bar because they're such cookie cutter jobs that they can just make them up. There's also the always fun and exciting Two Cents thing which Gavinwatch says reminds them of a similar bit in the Onion. Man, that's our favorite part of the Onion. Beyond Chron, of all sites, actually praises Gavin for doing what he did and wishes that Gavin's supporters were strong enough to talk to him earlier about his problems.

If you want to good recap of the stories out there, our beloved Eve has a good wrap up on SFGate.

Not everybody is screaming for Gavin to resign or telling him that shame, shame, everybody knows his name as there's a Facebook group out there called "Gavin Newsom is a P.I.M.P" You can see the bio above. And, of course, no Facebook entry would come complete without the always fun comments. This entry has such comments as "he can cheat on me any day" or "he pimped me so good last summer. ill never forget it." At this point, there's fifty-one members but expect that to shoot up at in a bit, especially as we post on it.

A search for other Gavin stuff got us entries for "I Had an Affair With Gavin Newsom" ("I thought we shared something special, but apparently you just used me, Mr. Playboy") as well as "I Want to (Gay) Marry Gavin Newsom" (He takes stands. He's provided universal health care for all residents under 25. He's reduced the homeless rate...He made the minimum wage $8.00/hr. ....And he has a damn fine ass.")

First off. Alcoholism is a serious problem and we hope Gavin Newsom (.pdf) gets help and support.

Second of all. Blue tie alert! (see picture from this afternoon at right.)

We're tag-teaming in for an exhausted Editor SFist Jon, who's taking a much-needed break from his nonstop Gavin news coverage this week, to give you the latest in Newsom news around the web.

--Gavin will be getting counseling from Mimi Silbert, the head of the Delancey Street Foundation -- though it sounds like as of now, they're not entirely sure how it's going to work. Update: The Chron's updated its original story, and now includes more anecdotes about how Newsom told his staff about his problem, a listing of the times that Newsom was seen drunk in public previously, and Newsom's blowup at the media for taking his picture this afternoon.

--The Board of Supes moratorium on attacking Newsom is now off: Jake McGoldrick calls for Newsom to resign ("What he has been trying to do in portraying himself as the victim is totally Machiavellian"), Ed Jew says he's "shocked" by all the revelations and calls for "an executive who can do the job," and Chris Daly asks, "Is Gavin Newsom capable right now of attending to the very important business of the city?" On the pro-Newsom side, Michela Alioto-Pier called Newsom "courageous," and Sean Elsbernd wishes Newsom the best, but wants to know exactly how much time the mayor expects to be spending in counseling.

Update: This story is updated as well, with more comments from other supervisors and local politicians. McGoldrick now also says he thinks others will call for Newsom to step down as well, saying "I didn't come here to be mildewed with caution in a corner." What does that even mean?

Other local media, bloggers, and chatboarders: Mildew with caution in a corner with us, after the jump!

Picture from the Chron's Local News Blog, by Liz Mangelsdorf.

The fallout of Gavin’s Bad Week has taken another turn, much to SFist's already bored chagrin, in that he just announced today that he's going to seek counseling for boozing. Now that "the Sopranos" is over, maybe that could be the sequel-- Dr. Melfi takes on as her new patient a handsome but troubled Mayor who breaks down everytime he sees snowy plovers by a pool. Newsom apparently told all of his Department Heads today what's up and to let them know that it won't entail him going into rehab so he'll be around to be Mayor. There goes our fantasy of him hanging with Lindsey Lohan and Mike Tyson in rehab. We also wonder if he'll do AA like Ruby did and so have to confess to everyone who he has wronged. Imagine that press conference.

Now granted, there have been rumors about Gavin boozing it up for a long time. And there have been all sorts of stories about him doing Mayoral type things while being a little incapacitated. But still, the whole "seeking counseling" thing is such a cliché-- it's always the second thing PR people tell people who've screwed up to do, right after apologizing. It's what everybody is doing whenever they get in trouble because it's a way of pretending be responsible without actually being responsible. Unless, of course, he really needs it.

Whatever-- we wish Gavin good luck anyways.

Gavin Newsom discusses health care issues with Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez this morning at UCSF Medical Center as Stanford MBA and actress Jennifer Siebel chats with elected officials.

Mayor Newsom toured part of the UCSF Children’s Hospital this morning during the California State Assembly’s Town Hall event hosted by Speaker Núñez. With girlfriend Jennifer at his side, he discussed plans for UCSF’s Mission Bay development over the coming years with Assembly Members, doctors, and officials.

Although nobody was around to shout questions at him asking if he intends to resign, Gavin’s actions this morning appear to suggest, despite recent events, the answer is an emphatic "no."

So you're Alex Tourk. Everything is fine and honky dorky until your wife, out of the blue, admits to having a fling with not only your boss but one of your best buddies. Even worse, it appears the everyone in the city (except us) knew about it but you didn't. Man, that's one hell of a bad week. Whenever we see these storylines on TV or in the movies, it always ends badly, like in people being shot and killed badly.

So where are we with all of this? Well everybody is still loving the story. It's in this week's Newsweek and Time. Wonkette finally weighed in on it (says a commentor: "Oh this is SF. They love making mountains out of mole hills at every perceived ethical lapse.") and the story even made Perez Hilton. SFGate reports they had their biggest date ever in terms of page views. When the images from SFGate linked to Drudge, the site slowed to a crawl. But with a story this juicy, how could people not be into it?

The first immediate question is what's next for the Gavster? As he tried to get back to his job, the question is just how good of a job can he do? As the Chron says, now that he's been taken down a notch or two, a lot of things he wants to work on-- homelessness, health care, the WiFi deal-- is considerably more of a challenge due to either distractions or a lot of people being even less willing to help him. Already, one fund raiser has been cancelled with the possibility of another being cancelled too. But as even Newsweek says, San Francisco is a fairly forgiving place. Says Wille Brown, a man who knows a few things or too about catting around: "being a hedonist is not a disability in San Francisco.” And God love San Francisco for that. On the other hand, some people are geting huffy over it.

Picture from SFGate

One day after Gavin's big My Bad moment, the big question is what does this all mean for him, the city, and his reelection bid. After all, as bad as this all sounds, politicians getting caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar falls into the realm of been there, done that.. Willie did it and nobody batted an eye. Guiliani did it and he's considered one of the big contenders for the Republican nomination. Gavin is still popular, the election isn't until November, and this is San Francisco and it's not like he's the only San Francisco politico who did something really stupid. But the one thing that seems to be sticking in everyone's craw, the one thing that could hurt more than anything else, is that he did this to one of his closest aides and friends. As somebody put it (we searched but couldn't find the link), this whole thing could be summed up by this eternal axiom: bros before hos. In other words, Gavin broke one of the cardinal rules of guydom.

So here comes the typical noncommittal stories saying well it could be bad, it might not be so bad. But in light of this and other screw ups, his image has taken a huge hit lately. And hey, there's the NY Times bringing up SFist Gate as one of his recent troubles. We made the NY Times! Of course, they don't mention us by name, but it's still super sweet.

The Chron's editorial wondered what the hell Gavin was thinking while Debra Saunders wishes Gavin would grow up a nd Ken Garcia thinks things are only going to get worse and compares Gavin to Clinton in terms of self-destructive behavior. Actually, Garcia has a point. The Bad Reporter, meanwhile, is hilarious as usual and recasts the infamous "So Best" picture from much happier days.

Well, that was certainly a mortified apology and a hasty retreat. We'll take Chris "The High Road" Daly's cue and refrain from comment about the principal players in this sad story -- but we are wondering: what's the effect of this on our current issues of obsession in the current political scene? What about.....

Question Time?: The SFWall's done a 180 on this, with people now seeming to agree that maybe Gavin should suck it up and go after all. Everyone's going to be nice to him, and hey -- Newsom would probably welcome a nice normal conversation about the problems with the wi-fi proposal, the status of the Niners, the kink.com Planning Committee meeting, or Gleegate after his last few days.

Fake Question Time?: Is Gavin really going to show up at the second townhall meeting next weekend (Feb. 10, 10 a.m, in the Bayview)? We hope so, because we've already made arrangements for brunch afterwards! But seriously. On the up side, we can't imagine the chickens will show up again, not after this. (though correct us if we're wrong!) On the down side -- is anyone actually going to show up? Maybe Gavin would actually like some chickens there.

The Mayoral Race?: Newsom got on and off the stage today too fast to answer Dan Noyes's question about whether he was going to resign (and it looks like if that happened, Aaron Peskin would replace him -- we checked), but even if that doesn't happen, suddenly the 2007 mayoral race is looking open again. On the right Tony Hall and Jack Davis are talking big -- and suddenly there's speculation that running for mayor has moved one notch higher on both Carole Migden and Bevan Dufty's priority lists. However, Chris "High Road" Daly says he's not even going to think about a progressive challenger to Newsom until all the dust clears on this issue. Oh good -- then maybe Chris can focus his attention on getting that DALY 06 sign down from the corner of Mission and S. Van Ness!

Whew. This low-joke policy we've voluntarily adopted is killing us. You win this round, Peter John Byorn Nelson Ragone!

Video still of Gavin Newsom leaving today's press conference from CBS 5.

12:46 And, yes, folks-- he wore a blue tie.

11:38. Abbada abbadee, that's all folks. He basically apologized to everyone, said he's really sorry, will work to regain everyone's trust, wants to "frame the agenda" over the next couple of months (meaning he doesn't want to talk about this anymore) and then got the hell out of there as fast as he possibly could.

Sorry this wasn't anymore exciting.

11:38 apologizes to staff, talks about agenda. Guess he's not going to resign.

11:37 Wants to restore confidence and will work hard to restore that confidence

11:36 Here we go. Gavin says it's all true and says he's deeply sorry to everyone and anyone, mainly Alex Tourk and us, the people of San Francisco

11:35 Still nothing. Gavin's late for even this....

11:31: Nothing is going on except for some guy saying "test 2...test 2...test 2..." over and over and over again. So, in other words, you're not missing anything

We got KCBS on the radio and ABC 7 on the internet and we're all ready to go in probably the craziest press conference we've seen in this city in a long time. We're not defending Gavin here and we're not saying he's got anyone else to blame but himself, but we can't imagine things like this are easy to do.

Anyways, here we go:

screen shot from ABC 7's raw video feed of the conference

We're a little late on this, but Gavin is going to have a press conference today at 11:30 to go over the allegations at City Hall today. And props to Gavin to taking this head on as opposed to not speaking to the press ever again. Of course, we haven't heard what he's going to say yet. If he says that he never had sexual relations with that women forget it.

We'll be here, liveblogging this sucker (that is if KCBS broadcasts it) so turn here to your friendly neighborhood blog and see what he says.

Hey everyone, in the midst of all this Ruby Rippey-Tourk madness, guess who showed up for a photo session and interview with the Chron? That's right -- Peter Ragone's best friend and your correspondent's biggest fan, John Nelson! We always love to meet our readers!

It's all somewhat anticlimactic, as Ragone's already admitted he posted all the comments listed under his IP address under John's name (and -- c'mon, we've got bigger fish to fry today!), but nonetheless, Ragone claims that everything he posted here is Nelson's opinion and was only posted after talking to John first.

John, the head of a market research company who has a healthy and vibrant interest in San Francisco politics despite living in San Anselmo, says:

Everything with my name on it is my view or came from my discussion with Peter. At times, I said, 'Sure, go ahead and post that for me.' It's a little silly. I'm surprised at how much attention it's received. I'm surprised that anyone is taking it that seriously."

Wow, John Nelson thinks we're his sister, and seems to know an awful lot about our employment history. Quick, Brother Nelson, where do we work now? (hint: not Gonzalez & Leigh).

Gavin, for his part, says:

Put this in perspective. We have a lot of people in this city who need us to focus on a lot of other things. Am I happy? No. Is it going to continue? Absolutely not. This from my perspective is not grounds to remove Peter from his job.

Honestly -- there's no hard feelings on this correspondent's end. We certainly understand that sometimes people get a little overexcited on the Internet. Thanks for reading the site, John and Peter, and please do know you're always welcome to post your views at SFist. (Though maybe under your own names and from your own computers in the future, okay?)

Picture of John Nelson from the Chron by Mike Kepka. No one knows who "byorn" is.